We’re interested in all wildlife (especially otters!) but “The Big Five” is a cliche everyone visiting the Kruger talks about, so this gallery focusses on them and their supporting cast.
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Tags: wildlife
You were really lucky to see that leopard!
Mixture of luck and patience! There were four other cars already there, but the leopard was lying in the grass – just an occasional ear or tailtip visible. We waited, and other cars came and went; the average “patience level” of the people seemed to be between 5 and 10 minutes. After 35 minutes we happened to be the only car left, and decided to give up ourselves. I turned the engine on… and the leopard stood up. : )
Ha! Cats are not idiots. That leopard knew full good and well that people were there and was hiding on purpose. He just stood up a touch too early because he overestimated the speed with which you were leaving… Or miscounted the cars… Or maybe he thought you had chased everyone away and wanted to pose for you.
I had similar experience at a zoo with a snow leopard. The cat was lying with its back to the window of its indoor habitat and a little girl was thumping on the glass. Every now and again the snow leopard’s ear would twitch and you could read by every line of the cat’s posture that it was slowing being driven mad. So, I said to the obnoxious child, “You will be really sorry when that glass breaks!” She took one horrified look at me and ran away. The snow leopard then turned, looked directly at me and blinked his thank you. 🙂
Cool.
Hefalumps are my favourite :-). I loved seeing the elephants in Sri Lanka (even though some are made to do roadworks!). I’m so jealous of all your sightings when we just get to see the mammoth house spiders of surbiton! xx
No problem. So to the 2 week 4 person trip to South Africa that I have planned in my head (flowers in Namaqua, wine-tasting in the Cape, arts and crafts in Cape Town, whale-watching in Hermanus) I shall just have to add a short private safari – there are places much closer to Cape Town than the Kruger.